


Flappable

by misura



Category: The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Everybody Lives, M/M, Soulmates, herded together by an angry goose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-27 13:50:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17767985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: In which Silas loses his cool, but all may yet be very well.





	Flappable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NeverwinterThistle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/gifts).



.01

Bod had read all about geese in general, and this particular type of goose in particular.

"He's gone away right now," he told the goose.

The goose shook a few of its feathers loose, which vanished as soon as they hit the ground.

 

.02

San Francisco by night was much like any other city. Silas had fed, and then he had fought, and now he felt ready to return to the place he took great care not to think of as 'home', because Silas knew very well where his home was, and it was not a place he particularly wished to see again.

"A souvenir," suggested Miss Lupescu. "For the boy."

Since he viewed Miss Lupescu as a friend, Silas did not reject her idea out of hand. He had brought Bod food, before, and books, later. Useful items.

Silas did not see how bringing Bod home a postcard or a key-ring or a cute magnet to put on your fridge would be of any use to Bod.

Before he could say so, however, there was the goose. Though Silas knew little about the behavior of livestock, no one could look at this particular goose without coming to two conclusions, the first being that this goose was very, very angry.

"I think perhaps that we should leave here now," said Silas, based upon the second conclusion.

Miss Lupescu eyed the goose.

The goose, for its part, seemed not to have even noticed her. Its baleful attention was focused solely on Silas. It honked and blew and flapped its wings, and then it attacked.

 

.03

After Silas's return, Bod waited for the goose to reappear. He told himself that, of course, it was only a formality. He did not need a goose to tell him what he had known almost from the beginning, and (so Bod imagined) neither did Silas.

Besides, Silas had brought him back a model of the Golden Gate bridge.

As far as Bod was concerned, the Sleer could keep their brooch and their cup and their treasure; Bod possessed something much more valuable.

 

.04

"A trap," said Haroun, scoffing. Being an Ifrit, Haroun scoffed at many things.

Of course, being an Ifrit, Haroun could afford to do so. Very few beings posed any sort of threat to Haroun, which made him a valued member of the Honour Guard. Plus, he had not once scoffed at Silas, or Miss Lupescu, or Kandar, or even at the piglet Kandar had brought along 'for luck'.

There really were far worse people in the world than Haroun, though soon, there might be a few less.

"Mirrors?" Miss Lupescu sniffed, though the mirrors did not have any smell Silas could detect.

Kandar's piglet squealed. Silas turned around, though he already half-knew what he would see.

His arm had healed quickly, as all of Silas's kind recovered from injuries with either great speed or not at all. Still, the memory was still fresh, and it made Silas wary.

"Who do you think it's here for?" asked Kandar, clutching its piglet. Then, its expression going from puzzled to horrified, it lifted the piglet to stare into its eyes.

The piglet squealed again. The goose honked and ran into the room full of mirrors, its reflections multiplying until it looked like there was not one angry goose but a dozen, and then a hundred, a thousand. Any other creature would have gotten trapped by now, unable to support the reality of quite so many versions of itself, but the goose merely honked again, the sound echoing and swelling into a cacophony as all of its reflections started honking as well.

Kandar hugged its piglet. Silas experienced a faint stirring of alarm. Miss Lupescu looked as if she wished to howl, but realized that the sound would get drowned in the sounds of the geese.

Haroun roared, his voice full of the fire all Ifrits knew how to command.

The geese came flowing out of the mirrors, down the corridors and passages to the place where the Jacks had made one of their bases. Silas and the rest of the Honour Guard followed, watching as the feathers flew and the Jacks screamed soundlessly and died and died, until not a single one of them remained, and then it was only the geese and the Honour Guard again.

Miss Lupescu sneezed.

Silas realized that dawn was mere hours away, and that he would have to move very quickly in order to get on a plane to return home.

"Run," snapped Miss Lupescu, her hackles rising, as if she was readying herself for a fight she would surely lose.

Silas ran.

The army of geese followed.

Haroun scoffed.

 

.05

"I have been your guardian for a long time," said Silas.

"Yes," said Bod, as he could not very well deny what was obviously true. "Thank you," he added, not wanting to sound ungrateful. Bod knew very well that without Silas, he might have grown up to be a very different person.

For starters, he might never have grown up at all.

"As such, it is only natural that you would experience a sense of attachment," said Silas.

Bod considered this statement and saw nothing wrong with it. "Yes," he said again.

"For me to take advantage of that attachment would serve us both ill," Silas went on. He had considered his approach carefully, during the long and stressful flight. True, he had been unable to see the geese from inside his coffin inside the plane, but he had been able to imagine them all too clearly, flying after the plane. "Therefore, I will not." The geese were not here right now.

"That sounds very sensible and logical." Bod nodded. "Although I think that you wouldn't have, anyway, even if you hadn't been my guardian all these years. I think you're the best person I know."

Silas did not blush anymore than he breathed or ate bananas. "The number of people you know is, at the moment, somewhat limited. Once you leave this place, you may discover this for yourself."

"Maybe," Bod said, not wishing to disagree with Silas. "I think that I will always love you most of all, though. After all, that's what soulmates do. I read so in one of the books you brought me."

"Not everything is as it is in the books," said Silas.

"I know that. I'm not a child anymore," Bod replied. "I think you should kiss me now. Consider it a going-away present, even if, of course, we'll be seeing each other again lots of times. Maybe we could even travel the world together for a bit. There are so many places I would like to see. You could show me around, and tell me all about them."

Somewhere in the darkness, something white fluttered and caught the light. It looked like a feather.

Silas hesitated.

Bod stepped forwards and kissed him.

Silas kissed him back, telling himself that he only did so because he did not want to see the graveyard ravaged by a legion of angry geese any more than he wanted to see Bod getting his arm broken or hurt in any other way or kissing anyone else the way he was kissing Silas right now.


End file.
